Reflexive Progressivism
May 2, 2026
Something that often gets on my nerves, but I never formalized, is when someone aggressivley takes the fogiving and progressive stance in a way that dismisses any other perspective. For example, a math teacher I have accounced our class' final would be a take-home test, with a time limit of one week. In his accouncement, he expressley, but ironically, referenced how his scheudle is much nicer than our other professors'. It doesn't need to be so explicit, or significant, though. Generally, signaling to others that you are laid back, or not like the other side, by dismissing some expectation or norm - usually one that, through a first order lense, is only beneficial to you.
I have an instinctive repulsion to this kind of stuff, and sometimes I'll be caught, socially. When friends are talking about something like this - how they sure do dislike this certain rigid system which they happen to benefit from, and are all going around agreeing, I will explain why I disagree, but often it's not so formal - maybe the agreement on this point is assumed in favor of some other point, and adressing the assumption would be awkward, or just in a social setting without time for a real engaging of thoughts - in these I am often caught flat footed, as I find I cannot just defer and agree outwardly. I'm too autistic, or something. I usually just end up shrugging off the conversation or invitation to join the choir in a brutish and confusing manner.
The title of Reflexive Progressivism was meant to be a placeholder initially, but I do think it fits quite well, and that this patten very well may map on to the progressive / conservative debate. While I do not endorse the idea behind Chesterton's Fence fully, many of these offenders would be better off doing so.
In my view, their evaluation of a norm is not its effect on reality, but the social context in which it exists - so they're more concerned about who likes and dislikes some norm and which ideas those people align themselves with. The result is that some silly things can become red or blue coded, and conversation around these topics, with lots of people, becomes a formality of alliance.
Chesterton's Fence is an idea that goes along with a story: A town wanted to expand the area in which their sheeps roamed. They had lots of space around them, but there was a large fence in the way, all around the town! No one knew what it was for, and currently it was only an annoyance. At a town meeting, there was a vote to take down the fence to let the sheep roam, and it passed. The next day, some workers went out and pulled out some posts, and everything was looking good! Until that night, when a pack of wolves raided the town and ate all the sheep. In this case, I agree with the point of the story - I think most norms we have are good, and ignoring them, especially publically, is probably bad.
What I really don't like, though, is the looking back at people uninterested to budge on some issue, and snarkily dismissing their opinions - which are often (but certainly not always) more thought out than their own! This is usually the case in the more dramatic dismissing of norms, as otherwise you'd be causing too much of a problem for a move unlikely to gain you much credit with the ingroup. I guess, generally, there are lots of people interested in flipping over our world, with little thought as to any reprocutions, and in fact they aren't even interested, but excited, and fervently so, to the point where someone who generally agrees with their qualms, but wants to take a step back and evaluate possible courses of action in service of their shared goals is ostracised. Of course this is no rebuttal of the progressive movement as a whole, just a possibly unimportant social pattern I have had the displeasure of noticing.